French Loaf

Made homemade chicken soup last night (family favorite and OH-SO-EASY) with homemade french bread. My first go with it. It was fantastic! The hardest part was forming the loaves. Everyone loved it and I sent all the leftovers with Jeff to Vero this morning. I love sending him off with good homemade food from home.

French Bread

5-6 cups flour
2 pkgs active yeast
1.75 cups warm water (why do I always write in decimals? This is 1 3/4)
.25 cups warm water (This is 1/4) But you all knew that anyway...
Cornmeal
beaten egg white with tbls. water
1 tbls sugar
1.5 tsp salt

Put yeast, sugar and 1/4 warm water in measuring cup and mix til' dissolved. Let sit. (I always dissolve my yeast first regardless of what the recipe may say)
Mix 2 cups flour and salt in large bowl. Add yeast mixture and rest of warm water. Beat well. Stir in remaining flour one cup at a time until dough is stiff, elastic and not sticky. Knead 8-10 minutes. Put in greased bowl, turn once to grease top, cover and let rise one hour.
Punch down. Separate into two halves. Turn out onto lightly floured surface and roll each half into appx. 15X10 rectangle. Roll up from long ends and seal well. Taper ends by pulling.
Place loaves seem side down on greased baking pan sprinkled with cornmeal. Be sure to keep them as separate as possible as they will join together. Brush with eggwhite mixture and let rise again for an hour or so. (You can cover them but towel may stick, mine did and I just removed towel and let rise without it) Brush again with eggwhite mixture and bake at 275 for a mere 20 minutes! Yummy!